“We did this in 2004; Steve Moore is acting like we didn’t have an experiment to test this theory. Under the George W. Bush administration, we did have a repatriation, a tax holiday and what did corporations do with all that extra money? Did they invest it? Create more jobs? No!” Reich explained. “They just brought back their shares of stock, pumped up share prices, provided more executive pay to the top executives—we’ve done it and we’ve seen that there are no results."Moore was undeterred by the facts and carried on with his dubious economic position.
“Explain to me why it’s good for America that we have a 40 percent tax rate way up here and the rest of the world is at 20 percent down here,” he responded with gesticulation outside the camera frame. "It just doesn't work for America."Reich shut that argument down.
“Well, it does because the effective tax rate—that is, what corporations are actually paying—is just about the same as other foreign corporations are paying."
CNN's Brianna Keilar explains how GOP tax plans are "propped up by, frankly, dishonest math"

BRIANNA KEILAR: Yes, but Republicans, Jake, want to get this done. They need and they want a win ahead of a crucial midterm election. But their tax plans are propped up by, frankly, dishonest math. They violate the very promise that the GOP has made time and time again, that they will not saddle future generations with more debt.

[BEGIN VIDEO]

[...]

KEILAR: Republicans are championing a plan that many deficit hawks say is anything but fiscally responsible. The tax plan's $1.5 trillion price tag is a low-ball figure. It's the price tag they need to come under in order to use special Senate rules requiring them to need only 51 votes. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscally conservative advocacy group, puts the real cost at $2.2 trillion.

MAYA MACGUINEAS: There are a lot of gimmicks they're slipping into the bill to make the costs look less than they actually are.

KEILAR: Here's one major gimmick: While the corporate tax cuts would be permanent, the tax cuts for American taxpayers would expire after ten years, on paper anyway, even though it's expected Congress would ultimately just make the cuts permanent. That fishy math allows Republicans to claim a smaller price tag.

MACGUINEAS: On one hand, they're saying, "Sure there is all of these expiring tax breaks, but don't worry, we fully intend to extend them, and you won't have to worry about your taxes going up." And on the other hand, they're saying, "Don't worry about the cost of the bill. Sure, we're borrowing $1.5 trillion," -- which, I would say, everybody should be worrying about -- "But we're not going beyond that limit," when really, they are.

1. Clinton’s tax increase on the rich hardly stalled the economy. In 1993, Bill Clinton raised taxes on top earners from 31 percent to 39.6 percent. Conservatives predicted economic disaster. Instead, the economy created 23 million jobs and the economy grew for 8 straight years in what was then the longest expansion in history. The federal budget went into surplus.

2. George W. Bush’s big tax cuts for the rich didn’t grow the economy. In 2001and 2003, George W. Bush lowered the top tax rate to 35 percent while also cutting top rates on capital gains and dividends. Conservative supply-siders predicted an economic boom. Instead, the economy barely grew at all, and then in 2008 it collapsed. Meanwhile, the federal deficit ballooned.

3. Obama’s tax hike on the rich didn’t slow the economy. At the end of 2012, President Obama struck a deal to restore the 39.6 percent top tax rate and raise tax rates on capital gains and dividends. Once again, supply-side conservatives predicted doom. Instead, the economy grew steadily, and the expansion is still continuing.

4. The Reagan recovery of the early 1980s wasn’t driven by Reagan’s tax cut. Conservative supply-siders point to Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. But the so-called Reagan recovery of the early 1980s was driven by low interest rates and big increase in government spending.

5. Kansas cut taxes on the rich and is a basket case. California raised them and is thriving. In 2012, Kansas slashed taxes on top earners and business owners, while California raised taxes on top earners to the highest state rate in the nation. Since then, California has had among the strongest economic growth of any state, while Kansas has fallen behind most other states.

So don’t fall for supply-side, trickle-down nonsense. Lower taxes on the rich don’t generate growth and jobs. They only make the rich even richer, at a time of raging inequality, and they cause bigger budget deficits.

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): There are certain promises that presidents make and that politicians make that you just got to keep. And I guess sometimes it gets hard because they push, and they push, and they push, and they push. Democrats are also trying to set a trap on taxes. Now the president said yesterday, "Well, I think the wealthy -- their taxes are going to remain about the same. And if not they may go a little higher." He never said "a little higher" when he was running for office. Here is the problem with that. The president's plan to get the forgotten men and women to work here is basically contingent on a growing, thriving economy.

[...]

Reagan slashed the top marginal rate in the course of his presidency from 70 to 28 percent. Revenues to the government doubled. Twenty million new jobs were created. And that was after the '82 recession -- I mean, he needed some time to get this thriving. And it worked. It's simple economics. Because those multinationals, those corporations, quote "rich people," what they're going to do is they're going to end up spending money and buying boats and as Geraldo said yesterday he bought a helicopter after the Reagan tax cuts, but that keeps people working. And then they'll build manufacturing centers and factories. And you know the top 1 percent already pay 39.5 percent of the federal income tax. The top 10 percent pays 70.9 percent. The bottom 50 percent pays nothing. And that's it. So the rich, quote, are already paying their fair share. The idea is to get them to spend their money and stimulate the economy and build the factories in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Trump’s budget would cut Medicaid by a lot, despite the president telling the Daily Signal days before launching his White House bid, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”

The administration proposes reducing spending on Medicaid programs by more than $600 billion over the next decade, a massive cut that appears to go on top of $839 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the House health care bill Trump is supporting.

Mulvaney insists that the proposed reduction in spending isn't a cut — it's simply growing less than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the needs of the program to be.

"There are no Medicaid cuts in terms of what normal human beings would call cuts, we are not spending less money than we did the year before," Mulvaney said.

Trump's budget proposes slashing the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), a $31.4 billion change to the program that pays monthly benefits to over 10 million disabled individuals under the retirement age.

Mulvaney argued that SSDI isn't “what most people would consider to be Social Security” and said he would "hope" less people receive the program once they remove individuals who "should not" be getting it. It's unclear how the administration determined there is that much fraud in the system.

This is another contract promise. Trump’s administration has tried to restrict funding to so-called “sanctuary” cities — jurisdiction that don’t enforce federal immigration priorities and cooperate fully with federal authorities — but their efforts were halted by the courts.

Trump’s budget would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the budget proposal doesn't appear to focus money on PTSD or mental health issues.

It would, however, slash $3.2 billion from the “individual unemployability” benefit, which the budget says will be "modernized." The program allows the VA to more fully compensate disabled veterans, including those with PTSD, whose disability renders them unemployable.

Trump promised resources for training in his voter contract, as well. This budget aims to increase funding for more border agents and immigration judges, increased immigrant detentions, and fighting the opioid crisis, but it does not earmark additional funds for training police.

The argument might be more compelling if it in any way reflected reality. The GOP plan in the House increases taxes on millions of middle-class households, and as the Washington Postreported, the Senate GOP’s tax plan moves even more aggressively away from Trump’s purported “focus.”

The tax bill Senate Republicans are championing would give large tax cuts to the rich while raising taxes on American families earning $10,000 to $75,000 over the next decade, according to a report released Thursday by the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official nonpartisan analysts.

President Trump and Republican lawmakers have been heralding their bill as a win for hard-working Americans, but the JCT report casts doubt on that claim. Tax increases for households earning $10,000 to $30,000 would start in 2021 and grow sharply from there, JCT found. By 2027, most Americans earning $75,000 a year or less would be forced to pay more in taxes, while people earning more than $100,000 a year would continue to pay less.

It’s worth emphasizing that the Joint Committee on Taxation is basically the Congressional Budget Office for tax bills. This isn’t a think tank or an advocacy organization; this is the congressional office responsible for scrutinizing tax bills for federal lawmakers

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi